It's Getting Hot in Louisiana, I Guess I'll Be Leaving Soon
Digest No. 22 - June 2025
The month of June has been full. All of it good, of course. Because virtually all of my reading and writing have gone towards my travel engagements this month, I’ve combined my normal categories for this digest. I anticipate a more regularly segmented digest next month.
On Traveling & Speaking & Reading & Writing1
We started the month off in Florida but migrated back up to Fayetteville for my third son’s piano competition. He had qualified for the state competitions in Arkansas before we moved, and thus we naturally returned for him to complete this final performance. He did well, taking the first honorable mention spot (i.e. third place) for his performance level. Son #3 was glad that it was over. We then spent a few more days in Fayetteville, wrapping up odds and ends.
We headed back to Pensacola on June 10th, where we stayed for a little over a week. Then, my oldest son and I packed up and headed for Dallas, TX. Son #1 took part in the ACCS Honor Choir, for which practice began a few days before the ACCS Repairing the Ruins conference kicked off.
The Honor Choir camp was held on the University of Dallas campus, and this was my first visit. Despite its location being so close to the DFW airport, the campus and its surrounding area felt like a somewhat isolated area, which I imagine makes it more appealing as a center of learning. I stayed with some friends for the first couple of days in Dallas, which meant going to UD’s campus to get some work done during the day. I worked on my talk for ACCS during that time, and I sent off a couple of book reviews as well.
While this was going on, my wife back in Florida was being asked to fill in a gap for the ACCS RTR schedule. This meant that she had about 72 hours to finish a talk that she had proposed back in the early Spring (but hadn’t done much work on in the intervening months). On the night before her talk, we went to the house of our friend,
and enjoyed the company of a few other classical educators who were in town for the conference. Mandi’s new book, Thoroughness & Charm, was promoted at the conference (and is well worth your time).
The next day, Sarah’s talk was after lunch and she did a great job, receiving a lot of interesting questions once it was over. She spoke on Medieval basilicas and how teachers can think about structuring their classrooms towards similar ends as these buildings. When it is posted over at the ACCS website, you should check it out. We spent a lot of Thursday visiting with friends in the vendor area and catching up with folks we hadn’t seen in a while. There were also some new connections. One of those was
, with whom I got to chat for a bit. Son #1 took one of Dr. Johnson’s courses last Summer, so making the face-to-face connection was great. We did not attend the RTR23 nor the RTR24 conferences, so it was refreshing to be back. Thursday night was the Honor Choir performance, and despite his serious face, my son quite enjoyed himself.
On Friday, I listened to
talk about the need for prayer, followed by a couple of other talks, one on teaching history by and one on St. Bonaventure by Kyle Rapinchuk of The Classical Thistle. In-between, I gave my own talk on teacher training, looking to the Medieval tradition for insights and guidance. I don’t know what the average workshop attendance was this year, but I had somewhere around 90 people in my room (which I think means they got lost on the way to hear Michael Ward talk about Planet Narnia). It was probably the biggest audience I’ve had for an ACCS workshop.
I was pleased with how the talk turned out, and with the excellent questions I received afterwards. I had been a bit nervous about filling 60 minutes, but not only did my talk hit an almost perfect 45 minutes, but the Q&A ran all the way up to the next talk, which means I didn’t get to respond to everyone. I did pass along my email, for those who still wanted to know more. This paper brings together several things I’ve been kicking around, some from work I’ve been doing for the Classical Education Research Lab, some from work for the University of Birmingham’s MA program, and then some of my own interests.
Friday evening, Sarah and I attended a fellowship meal for the Beza Institute, of which I am proud to call myself a fellow. There we spent time with some folks I already mentioned in this note (Mandi and Lucas) as well as
and . We had a great time, eating homemade pizza and covering a range of topics in conversation (including which Narnia book was our favorite; mine is The Silver Chair). It was such a refreshing time and was the kind of low-key evening I needed after two full days of the conference. It is worth noting that Jacob and Mandi both have excellent Substacks which are linked above.
On Saturday, I went to Devin O’Donnell’s talk on teaching in the Medieval tradition and finished up the conference with
’s talk on Christopher Columbus. I saw way more friends than I can tag here, including some fellow Ciceronians and a handful of Faulkner University people.
As if that goodness wasn’t enough, my wife, my son, and I left the conference and headed for Monroe, LA. Since it’s hot out, that must mean it’s time to attend the annual Jubilate Deo music camp held by Church of the Redeemer, organized by
and David Erb. We will be here through Saturday, and are enjoying another round of seeing people we haven’t seen in a year (including my friend ).
We will finish out the last two days of June in Florida. While this past month has been a blast, I’m looking forward to some rest.
An Announcement
The talk I gave at the ACCS conference was in fact my last official act for the Lab in Arkansas. It has been a wonderful two years, learning quite a bit about the world of education policy and metrics, and thinking about the state of classical education more broadly. Since I do like to practice as well as theorize, I am excited to announce that I will be taking up the position of Upper School Principal at Trinitas Christian School come August. My familiarity with the school should help me make the transition, and I look forward to coming alongside the work being done there.
I’m also pleased to promote the Thales College Certificate in Classical Education Philosophy. There are some great folks teaching in this program (including the aforementioned Josh and Mandi) such as
and Jim Ranieri (of Beow’s Books & Brews fame). The program is a distance one which is designed to be cost effective and well-structured for busy teachers. This Fall, I will be teaching in the program and would love to see some of my readers in the course. I have the pleasure of leading the CCEP 140: Core Text – Humanities class, which includes James Taylor’s Poetic Knowledge, Genesis, Homer’s Odyssey, and Dante’s Inferno. The class is going to be a lot of fun (and includes excellent reading)!On Listening
In 2009, My wife and I exited our wedding to the Beach Boys song, “God Only Knows,” which seemed the culmination of my lifelong love of their music. I didn’t know then that I would have the pleasure of sharing that music with our children, keeping that love alive. Like many, I was saddened to learn of Brian Wilson’s passing, though I am grateful it brought some wonderful things to my attention. One of them was this amazing video explaining the complexity of “God Only Knows” (and it is worth all 13 minutes of your time). But for those who don’t even know the song, I include it here for your edification.
If you’re wondering where the Commonplace section of this monthly update has gone, it has migrated to its own section of my Substack. You can check out the first entry here:
Less Profane or Perhaps More Sacred
I’m trying out a new monthly piece, which I intend to be a mid-month regular. For now, I’ll be removing the Commonplace section from my monthly digests and instead start offering a post dedicated to the practice of commonplacing and brief reflection. It’s an experiment, which means it may not survive the trial phase. My goal is to draw from my regular r…
That is wonderful! Thank you, Dr. Hadley, for not only being a voice for quality classical education but for also showing how to live a good life, balancing family and work. It's great your son got to be at the Beza dinner with you, and yes, singing in the honor choir is serious business : ) Congratulations on your principalship at Trinitas Christian School in the coming year. They are fortunate to have you.
Yes, Thales College's Certificate in Classical Education Philosophy is a great program. I took Dr. Hadley's CCEP 140 course, and it was very helpful, along with completing all the other certificate courses, to prepare for my first classical teaching job this fall : ) I recommend the program very highly, particularly if you did not experience any classical education in the past. You will get up to speed quickly! It is both cost-effective and excellent! https://www.thalescollege.org/academics/philosophy